Massive data sets can be collected during manufacturing processes and in connection with research and development activities. Manufacturing processes are sometimes categorized as either “batch” manufacturing processes or “continuous” manufacturing processes. In a batch manufacturing process, a series of steps are performed on a set of raw and/or processed materials over a finite duration to produce a product with desired properties. In some batch processes, processing occurs at a single workstation (e.g., a chamber or container) involving one or more process tools (e.g., process tools within the chamber or container). Examples of batch manufacturing processes include semiconductor wafer processing (e.g., processing a single wafer results in a set of chips), pharmaceutical processing (e.g., the process results in an intermediate or final output set of chemicals or drugs), or biotechnology processing (e.g., the process results in a particular biological fermentation or cell culture process). In contrast, in continuous manufacturing processes, materials are manufactured, processed or produced substantially without interruption.
As an example, in the semiconductor device manufacturing industry, as device geometries shrink to the nanometer scale, complexity in manufacturing processes increases, and process and material specifications become more difficult to meet. For example, a typical process tool used in current semiconductor manufacturing can be described by a set of several thousand process variables. The variables are generally related to physical parameters of the manufacturing process and/or tools used in the manufacturing process. In some cases, of these several thousand variables, several hundred variables are dynamic (e.g., changing in time during the manufacturing process or between manufacturing processes). The dynamic variables (e.g., gas flow, gas pressure, delivered power, current, voltage, and temperature) can change, sometimes non-linearly, based on a variety of factors, including, for example, a specific processing recipe, the particular step or series of steps in the overall sequence of processing steps, errors and faults that occur during the manufacturing process or changes in parameters.
Generally, process variables associated with a manufacturing process can be divided into two different types, X-type variables (also known as X-variables or observation-level variables) and Y-type variables (also know as Y-variables). X-type variables are indicative of factors, predictors, or indicators and are used to make projections or predictions about the manufacturing process or results of the manufacturing process. Y-type variables are indicative of yields or responses of the manufacturing processes. X-type variables and Y-type variables are generally related to each other. Often, the exact relationship between the X-type variables and Y-type variables is uncertain or difficult or impossible to determine. The relationship can, in some instances, be approximated or modeled by various techniques, such as linear approximation, quadratic approximation, polynomial fitting methods, exponential or power-series relationships, multivariate techniques (e.g., principal component analysis or partial least squares analysis), among others. In such cases, the relationship between X-type variables and Y-type variables can be inferred based on observing changes to one type of variables and observing responses on the other type of variables.
There are several existing approaches for monitoring a manufacturing process. However, these methods are difficult to apply to a batch manufacturing process. This is because an operator of a batch process is unlikely to know the quality of the product until the batch is finished, by which time it is too late to adjust the process to improve product quality. Even for those methods that can monitor a batch evolution in real time, the methods do not evaluate the effect of past and current behavior of the manufacturing process on its future behavior or troubleshoot the process using predicted process data. Therefore, existing methods make it difficult for an operator to detect future faults and develop avoidance strategies accordingly during process execution.